a letter to my mother
Still, still I am a load bearing soul, So, I will carry your wound sack across my shoulders chisel space in my skull for your sadness and if this isn’t enough, mum I’ll keep trying, I’ll sell my spleen, a kidney, a lung- so, your suffering can live comfortably inside me, I will weigh my flesh and give you a kilo (2.2 pounds) the metric system balances the pain Even then you will say that I don’t deserve the springtime, though my soul has buckled and my skin sack is empty my kilogram of flesh bloody on your scales, I mustn’t laugh at the diving swallows mustn’t inhale the lustful jasmine or finger magnolia flesh turning to leaf. It’s not enough to bear your load. It’s only fair that I suffer as you have and there’s logic in your metrics but what mother loves her child with kitchen scales? what mother calls this love at all.
Word upon Word 